Michelle Berg and Charlotte Wood
Graduate Students, University of Notre Dame

The Red Dead Redemption Survey: Cool Gas in the Halos of Massive Galaxies
Michelle Berg

The Slowly Fading Light Echo Around Type Ia Supernova 2009ig

Charlotte Wood

"The Art of Possibility: Weighted Ensembles of Trajectories"

Lillian T. Chong, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh

The weighted ensemble (WE) path sampling strategy orchestrates quasi-independent parallel simulations that are run with intermittent communication to enhance sampling of rare events such as protein conformational changes, folding, and binding. Trajectories are pruned or replicated in a way that encourages sampling of under-explored regions without biasing the dynamics. I will present recent advances in both WE methodology and software along with applications to protein binding processes in the generation of pathways and calculation of rate constants. …

Exploring the universe through quantum interference effects

Dr. Zhen Liu
Postdoc, Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
University of Maryland

Quantum interference effects lead to intriguing phenomena and reshape our exploration of nature. In this colloquium, I will discuss the crucial role played by quantum interference effect in our exploration of nature across vastly different scales. From the cosmological scale, such as gravitational wave detection, physics of matter-antimatter asymmetry, to the smallest scale, such as neutrino physics and high energy particle physics, quantum interference effects play different roles and have very profound implications of the underlying physics. I will review these phenomena and present my recent research discovering the striking effects of quantum interference in Higgs physics. Further utilization of these effects shed light on key puzzles of fundamental physics.

Seeing into the Black: Evidence for Black Holes

Dr. Keith Davis, Director of the Digital Visualization Theater
Jordan Hall of Science, University of Notre Dame…

A pathway to the next discovery

Dr. Zhen Liu
Postdoctoral Associate
Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics, University of Maryland…

PbSnSe: a model platform to study topological phases

Gauthier Krizman
Department of Physics of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris

Hosted by Prof. Assaf…

β-Delayed Charged Particle Measurements for Studies of Novae and X-ray Bursts

Dr. Moshe Friedman
NSCL, MSU

Hosted by Prof. Bardayan…

Title TBA

Mr. Zach Hafen
Graduate Student
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Northwestern University…

Cosmological probes of the invisible universe

Dr. Yuhsin Tsai

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Elementary Particle Theory Group
Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
University of Maryland

In the next decade, precision cosmological data from Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure observations will improve in sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude. In addition, gravitational wave signals may allow us to see through the plasma background to study the universe at the very earliest times, immediately after the Big Bang. I will discuss the prospects for using these cosmological signals to study the invisible universe, including the unknown properties of neutrinos and dark sector particles, and quantum fluctuations in the primordial dark age.

Title TBA

Dr. Yuhsin Tsai
Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Physics
University of Maryland…